Resources

Welcome to the NOFAS Information and Resource Clearinghouse. Search the state-by-state resource directory, review recent research, learn how alcohol interferes with healthy development, and contact NOFAS with your question.

State Resource Directory (Services and Support)

Information for Expectant Mothers

Research on Alcohol and Pregnancy

Circle of Hope/Birth Mothers Network

Contact NOFAS

Weekly Roundup Email List

Order NOFAS Materials

Addiction Treatment

Speaker’s Bureau

Key Facts on Alcohol and Pregnancy

There is no safe amount or type of alcohol during pregnancy.  Any amount of alcohol, even if it’s just one glass of wine, passes from the mother to the baby.  It makes no difference if the alcohol is a liquor or distilled spirit such as vodka, or beer or wine.

A developing baby can’t process alcohol.  Developing babies lack the ability to process, or metabolize, alcohol through the liver or other organs.  They absorb all of the alcohol and have the same blood alcohol concentration as the mother.

Alcohol causes more harm than heroin or cocaine during pregnancy.  The Institute of Medicine says, “Of all the substances of abuse (including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana), alcohol produces by far the most serious neurobehavioral effects in the fetus.”

Alcohol used during pregnancy can result in FASD.  An estimated 40,000 newborns each year are affected by FASD, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, with damage ranging from serious to subtle.

1 in 100 babies have FASD, nearly the same rate as Autism.  FASD is more prevalent than Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, SIDS, Cystic Fibrosis, and Spina Bifida combined. Alcohol use during pregnancy is the leading preventable cause of birth defects, developmental disabilities, and learning disabilities.